Microscopic air bubbles inside glaciers can be read like the rings of a tree, providing climate data going back thousands of years. But as the world鈥檚 , researchers are scrambling to preserve that data before it鈥檚 gone forever. Two years ago, a coalition of European universities and researchers founded , a group assembled to extract multiple ice cores from some of the planet鈥檚 most vulnerable high-mountain glaciers. The scientists will study a single core from each site and store the rest in Antarctica for future testing.
Last summer, Ice Memory researchers pulled three cores from Mont Blanc that could prove invaluable for understanding how climate change, pollution, and even diseases like the Black Death have affected Europe. The group鈥檚 next venture, which at press time was on track to be completed in June, is even more daunting: they鈥檒l climb 21,102-foot Bolivian peak Illimani and drill data out of its glacier, one of the Andes鈥檚 most threatened. The 15 scientists on the two-month expedition must be proficient in high颅altitude climbing and able to work around the clock. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 do this kind of research if you鈥檙e not a mountaineer,鈥 says Ice Memory cofounder , an engineer with the .
Here鈥檚 how they鈥檒l pull it off.聽
The Mountain
The site of the mysterious Eastern Air Lines plane crash in the 1980s, Illimani is a massif of three 20,000-foot peaks. The team will acclimatize around La Paz for three weeks before moving to the drill site, a few hundred feet below the summit.
The Ascent
Thirty local porters and guides will haul more than two tons of equipment, including a specially designed ice drill, nearly 6,000 feet up from base camp. Just below the drill site is Stairway to Heaven, a roughly 60-degree pitch where fixed ropes are mandatory.聽
The Site
Located at 20,670 feet, the drill site is on a flat glacial expanse between two peaks. Though it鈥檚 important to work as fast as possible to limit time at elevation, the 15-person crew will require 15 days of continuous drilling to extract the samples.
The Drill
Designed for high颅altitude operation by , of Columbus, Ohio, the drilling system weighs 176 pounds and breaks into eight pieces for transport. Fully assembled, it stands nearly 12 feet tall and can ex颅tract cores as deep as 820 feet.
The Cores
Just under four inches in diameter, the three 475-foot cores will be cut into one-meter, 15-pound logs to ease transport and storage. Insulated boxes are too heavy to carry up the mountain, so the cores will be stored in a snow cave until porters can bring them to base camp in cardboard sleeves.
The Descent
Transporting 5,500 pounds of ice down the moun颅tain must be done at night to minimize melting. Each trip will take about five hours, and with a maximum load of four segments per porter, the descents will require nearly two weeks to complete.
The Cold Chain
A series of refrigerated vehicles and storage facilities links the Andes drill site to the research lab in Grenoble, France, and the ice cores鈥 final home in a snow vault in Antarctica鈥攁 24,000-mile journey. The cores won鈥檛 reach their destination until at least 2021. If the chain fails at any stage, the data in those cores will be lost.